Crime Traveller - Car Talk
by EllisHendricks
Summary: Holly/Slade friendship/romance - It's the middle of the night, and having travelled back in time to catch a killer, Holly and Slade have time to kill in the car. Somehow, it makes it easier to talk about their relationship.


The clock on the dashboard read 02:46, which automatically made Slade yawn. They had been waiting there in his car since just after midnight, and still had another hour to wait before whoever killed their victim arrived on the scene. Neither of them had the option of going home, as their 'other selves' were asleep in their respective beds, and it hadn't seemed worth trying to get a hotel room for the sake of a few hours.

After the Webb Biotech investigation, he and Holly had reached an understanding regarding the machine. All the ups and downs of the past few months had brought them to that point, and Slade finally appreciated the weight of the secret with which Holly had entrusted him, and the conduct that he owed her in return. Salvaging the crystal from the Webb Biotech machine had gone some small way to redeeming himself, but despite what Holly might have thought, he hadn't done it for the sake of his future investigations – he had done it for her. Slade knew there was nothing that mattered more to Holly than her father's creation and the continuation of his work, so being able to give her the crystal was the closest he could get to an expression of his feelings for her.

They would, Holly had agreed, continue to use the machine, but it had to be her call and it had to be with good reason. Although she didn't say it explicitly, Slade knew that one more transgression on his part would likely spell the end of their friendship, and he was no longer willing to put that at risk – even for the thorniest of investigations.

"Are you awake?" he whispered.

"Of course," she replied, sleepily, and without opening her eyes.

"There's more room in the back if you wanted to get comfortable."

Holly's eyes immediately snapped open and she fired a look at him.

"I meant if you wanted to sleep," he added, smiling.

Holly returned the smile, blushing slightly at her misinterpretation.

"I'm fine," she told him. "It'll be worse if I fall asleep."

Slade thought about offering her his jacket, but he knew that after the incident with Stephen Marlowe, Holly would hate to be treated like a damsel in distress. He might have rescued Holly from the flash-freeze facility, but it was her ingenuity and quick-thinking that later saved him from death.

"If someone gave you a million pounds, what would you do with it?" he asked.

Holly arched her eyebrow at him.

"Do you have a million pounds, Slade?"

"No, just trying to help us stay awake."

Holly exhaled, considering the question.

"Well, I supposed I'd pay off the mortgage on the flat. And then there's the machine of course..."

"Could you finish it?"

"I don't honestly know what finished looks like," Holly said. "Of course, it would mean more money for photon rods, so eventually we would be able to control the timeline, decide how far to travel."

Slade's mind started to pore through the possibilities.

"How far back could you go?"

"Hard to say," Holly admitted. "But of course you could only travel within your lifetime."

Slade nodded. There was a pause.

"Would you save your father?"

"You know I couldn't do that. But I would go back just to see him, to talk to him again." She looked across at Slade, and then straight ahead.

"I miss him," she added. "My mother, too."

This took Slade by surprise; Holly had never mentioned her mother to him, and he had never felt it was his place to ask.

"She died when I was twelve, so I never got to talk to her as an adult," she continued, adding in a near-whisper: "My father might have been my hero, but it was my mother who inspired me."

"She would have been very proud," Slade said, hoping it wouldn't sound like a platitude.

Holly gave a short, silent laugh.

"I think she'd probably had enough of time-travel," she said. "When my father sold our house to fund the machine, I couldn't help but think about how my mother would have felt. She loved it there. But I suppose after she'd gone, it wasn't really the same place anyway."

"Would you change the past if you could?" Slade pressed. "You know, to get him back?"

"You know it's not possible, so why do you want to know?" Holly said, with good-humoured exasperation.

"I don't know," Slade shrugged. "I suppose it's something I think about."

Selfishly, it had struck Slade that if Professor Turner hadn't vanished that day, Holly would probably never have come to work for the police, and consequently they wouldn't have met. His ego hoped that Holly might consider it a silver lining of sorts.

"Okay," Holly said, in a tone that suggested she was humouring him. "What would you change? Buying that jacket, I'd like to think."

"What's wrong with this jacket?"

"Nothing," she replied, before adding, "It's very you."

"That's what you said about my flat."

"Like I said then," she smiled. "Original."

Slade thought about that first evening Holly had come back to his flat, and how she was quick to notice the photograph on the top of the unit. He had been totally ill-prepared, just blurting out the easiest thing in the moment. Holly must have had questions, but she was far too polite and too respectful of his privacy to ever bring it up again.

"I'd go back several months so that I could tell you the truth," he said.

Holly's brow furrowed.

"The truth?" she asked, quizzically. He could see he had unsettled her slightly.

"About that photo; about who she was."

Holly shook her head.

"It wasn't any of my business. I shouldn't have been so nosy."

"No, it was a fair question," Slade continued. "I just hadn't talked about her for so long, to anyone."

"She was a girlfriend?" Holly asked, tentatively.

Slade felt himself take a silent breath.

"She was my wife," he said.

He saw Holly's eyes widen slightly, saw her quickly regain her composure.

"Oh," was all she managed to say.

"Like I said, it was a long time ago," Slade added, feeling the need to reassure her.

"I...I had no idea," Holly managed. "I'm so sorry, Slade."

"No, _I'm_ sorry. There was no reason not to tell you, but, I don't know, the opportunity never came up. That's why I think about going back to that night at my flat."

There was silence for a few moments, and Slade wished he could better see Holly's expression in the darkness. He knew the truth had to come out, and he knew it had to be sooner rather than later; it had been a weight on his shoulders, felt heaviest when he was alone with Holly.

"So...do you want to tell me about it now?"

Slade looked up.

"Imagine we did travel back to that night," Holly continued. "What would you do differently?"

"I'd probably start by getting some wine in," he said, with a smile. He was slightly ashamed by his attitude back then, when he didn't twice about giving Holly his pen mug to drink in place of a beer glass.

"I would have suitable protection ready, too," he added.

He saw Holly colour slightly, for the second time.

"I'm talking about a raincoat," he clarified. "For when you throw your beer at me."

"Well, perhaps I might not have done that if you'd bothered to tell me that it was you skulking around the church that night," Holly retorted, recovering herself.

Slade had thought about that – a lot. If Holly had known that he was on guard duty, and therefore _wasn't_ enjoying a 'sleepover' at Sonja Duvall's home, how might that night have gone? He remembered the atmosphere building between them, and recognised that he had probably been only minutes away from making a move. But, although it might sound crazy, he was relieved that hadn't happened.

"I should at least have let you have the bed," he told her.

"But what about the photograph?" Holly reminded him.

"To be honest, I'd forgotten it was even there," Slade said. "So when you asked...I don't know...it was easier to try and shrug it off."

"Shrug off having been married?" Holly said, a note of amused disbelief in her voice.

"It was too...personal, I suppose. I hadn't talked to anyone about it for years, not since she – _Jessica_ – died. It was just easier not to."

It had been a long time since he had spoken her name out loud.

Holly nodded, glancing down at her lap.

"How long ago...?"

"Seven years," Slade replied. "She was hit by a car on her way to work. She shouldn't have even been walking, but she'd leant me her car while mine was being serviced. That's something I wish I could go back and change."

When he looked up, Holly's gaze was fixed on him.

"That's understandable," she whispered.

"We'd only been married a few weeks," he heard himself adding. "And we'd only met a couple of months before that."

"It must have felt right."

Slade nodded, remembering how natural it all felt at the time – he had fallen in love so quickly that waiting any longer would have just seemed pointless. But he realised, too, that he and Holly had now been friends for longer than his entire relationship with Jessica. It had taken almost losing Holly at the hands of Stephen Marlowe to appreciate that there was more than one way to fall in love, and it had been happening to him without him realising.

"Would you go back?" Holly asked, breaking the silence. "If you could?"

This was something Slade had thought about a lot, almost as though he was testing how raw those feelings still were, whether it was a wound he could risk re-opening. How could he not want to change the past if he could? He and Jessica had been so happy, and her death had destroyed his life, changed everything about him. How could he not want to save her life? But there was a paradox, because changing the past would probably mean that he would never meet Holly – or if he did, the nature of their relationship would be completely different.

"Too much has happened," he said, finally. "I want to keep the past where it belongs."

Holly raised an eyebrow at him, clearly drawing attention to the irony of this statement, given his history with the machine.

There was another short silence before she spoke again.

"I could have got married, you know."

Slade sat forward, feeling his heart jump slightly.

"Marlowe?" he asked.

Holly nodded.

"I mean, he never directly asked me, but I think that's what he wanted," she said, before adding, with a laugh, "My father, too."

"So what happened?"

"He was offered a job in America, at a prestigious university, and he asked me to go with him."

"Why didn't you? Because you wanted a thankless job with the police?"

Holly smiled.

"I didn't want to leave my father or the machine – I knew how much he relied on me, and I knew how close he was to a breakthrough. Besides, I realised that I wouldn't be able to get work in the States – unless I married Stephen. If I'd been in love with him, it might have made sense, but his asking me to go with him made me realise that things had changed – for me, anyway."

Slade contemplated this, remembering Holly's refusal to leave him in that burnt-out nightclub during the Hawkins investigation. What did that say about _their_ relationship?

"Was he disappointed?"

"At first," Holly said. "But we parted on good terms. I didn't see him again until that day in the Webb Biotech offices."

"Maybe your influence might have kept him out of trouble," Slade suggested.

Holly gave a short laugh.

"It hasn't worked on you so far," she said.

Slade wanted to tell her that it had, more than she could know – and not just when it came to his work.

"Would you do things differently, if you could go back?" he asked.

"In what way?"

"Maybe turn him down for that date at the cinema?"

Holly offered him a short, sarcastic laugh.

"Being introduced to _Les Enfants du Paradis_ is one of the things I wouldn't change," she replied. "But obviously, if I'd known what would happen seven years down the line, I might have acted differently. And I think I might actually think twice about taking _you_ to the cinema."

"I liked everything except for the film," he told her. He remembered looking around in the cinema foyer at all of the couples, and realising that he and Holly probably looked just like them. In the darkness of the auditorium, he had started to wonder what it would take to _be_ like them. Sitting there in the car, he felt that it was within touching distance.

"You know, he kissed me," Holly said suddenly, a half-smile on her face.

Slade felt his heart jolt again. At first he assumed she meant after the cinema outing all those years ago, but then he realised she was referring to their more recent encounter.

"When?"

He immediately thought back to that night, when he had gracelessly hijacked Holly's evening out with Marlowe, later learning that she had gone back to his house.

"Not long before he tried to kill me," she replied with a short laugh. "I mean, I didn't know at that point that he was planning to kill me."

"What did you do?" Slade asked, warily, unsure of whether he wanted to hear the answer.

"He took me by surprise," Holly said. "But I just thought he was caught up in the excitement over the machine. I don't think I really did anything."

Slade felt a measure of relief.

"So...you never thought about going back to him?"

Holly laughed.

"Slade!"

"What?"

"What's this about?"

He immediately worried that he had overplayed his hand, that there was now no going back.

"I was just concerned that you might have had...residual, you know...feelings for him," he stumbled, adding quickly, "And that it might still be a...problem, for you."

Every word he uttered made him wince, reminding him just how terrible he was at articulating anything vaguely emotional or intimate. But when he dared to look at her, he saw that Holly wasn't laughing at him; she was composed, serious.

"When I saw Stephen again, yes, I was pleased," she said. "We had a shared history, and it was nice to reconnect with someone who knew my father. But it never even entered my mind that there would be anything more. Too much has happened."

Slade recognised his own words being reflected back at him.

"But you trusted him," Slade said. "You told him about the machine."

Holly nodded, looking down again.

"I know. It seemed right at the time," she replied. "And it probably didn't help that I was pretty angry with you."

"I deserved that," Slade acknowledged. "I mean, I was right about Marlowe, but I still deserved it."

Holly shot him a look of mock-outrage.

"You were lucky! You can't honestly tell me you weren't even slightly motivated by personal reasons?"

"I drew on my years of police experience," Slade replied. "I know how to spot a criminal low-life."

"Fine," Holly said. "You can use that valuable police experience when the next big case falls into your lap."

Slade couldn't help smiling. Holly, it seemed, was playing the same game as he was, trying to elicit some sort of confession from him, something concrete that would confirm how he felt about her.

"Look, okay, there were personal reasons," he admitted. "I felt...I don't know...shut out, almost."

"Shut out?"

"You and Marlowe, you had this shared...interest, an expertise in something I can barely get my head around, which I'll never completely understand. It made sense that you would want to share it all with him," he said. "But I can't say that I liked it."

He couldn't bring himself to use the word 'jealous', but it was an implication that Holly would surely pick up on.

"Work is one thing, Slade..." she said slowly.

"Not with this," he replied. "Not with the machine. It's everything, it's your life, and...I didn't want anyone else to have a part of that."

When they got into the car that evening, Slade had no idea what he would find himself admitting to. Maybe it was the late hour, the tiredness; maybe the darkness of the car gave him something to hide behind. He waited for her response, but she seemed to be thinking about something.

"You know, some people claim that there are no such things as accidents," she said. "Sometimes I wonder whether I was waiting to be caught out."

Slade frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"It's hard to explain what it was like in that time between my father's disappearance and you finding out about the machine; going to work every day, spending all of the rest of the time working on the machine, knowing that I could never tell anyone. I knew my father had sacrificed everything, including friendships, for the machine – he was just lucky he met my mother before his experiments actually became successful. I thought I understood what it meant, and I thought I was doing all right, but perhaps...all I know is that on that day, during the Silberman investigation, I couldn't think of anything to tell you but the truth."

"I'm glad you did," Slade replied, feeling sufficiently confident to allow his hand to drop onto her shoulder for a moment. She glanced at his hand and smiled.

"I'm glad, too...most of the time."

"You don't ever think about revealing the machine to the world, like Marlowe planned?"

"I've thought about it, of course, but I always hear my father's voice in my head," Holly said. "It's impossible to predict even a fraction of the repercussions. The world is a dangerous enough place as it is."

"The money would be nice," Slade grinned.

"I don't think it would be as simple as that."

"So why do it?"

Holly narrowed her eyes.

"You mean why did my father devote his life to time travel if he had no intention of sharing it?"

Slade nodded.

"For the sake of science," Holly said. "Because he believed it could be done, and if it could, then as a scientist he couldn't not pursue it. It's one of the holy grails of science."

"Is that why you do it, too?"

Holly was thinking about this.

"When my father disappeared...the machine was all I had left of him...and continuing to work on it was the only thing I could do to...distract myself. If he had died, I would have grieved, but I didn't have that grief; just questions and uncertainty."

"Did you think you could get him back?"

Holly shrugged, shaking her head.

"I still don't know the answer to that," she told him. "But if I give up on the machine, I'll never know."

"But if you never tell anyone else, won't time travel end with you?"

Slade couldn't help but thinking that was a waste, a bit like civilisations that made great leaps forward before dying off, leaving the rest of the world to fumble around for the next few hundred years until they reached that same point.

"Someone else would get there eventually, in time," Holly said. Slade thought he could hear a note of sadness in her voice.

Slade grinned.

"Just think, if you'd married Marlowe, you could have your own little fleet of time-travellers by now."

"Oh, I don't know; I haven't completely given up on the idea of that happening," Holly countered. "One day."

The atmosphere between them had been constantly shifting during the course of the night, as the conversation pin-balled between the serious, the flirtatious and the revelatory. This statement from Holly was somehow a combination of all three. Without confessing their feelings to each other, they were clearly both jumping several steps ahead. But now here they were, in the cramped confines of a car in the middle of the night, staking out a crime scene; not exactly the best conditions for taking the first of those steps. The moment was there for the seizing, and Slade was afraid that he could lose it. It had been over fifteen years since he had tried to kiss someone in a car, and it was only now that he was remembering the limitations imposed by car seats and gear-sticks. But this was his now-or-never moment, and the thump in his chest was telling him so.

"Slade!"

He blinked, yanked fuzzy-headed from his train of thought.

"What?"

"That's him, that's Simon Bradley!"

Slade's brain felt as though it was processing information in slow motion, but eventually his eyes fell on a figure in the distance, their future murder victim. He could almost smell the puff of smoke as his plan instantaneously vanished.

"Um, yeah," he heard himself mumble. "Yeah, that's him."

"What do you want to do?"

What he wanted to do and what he knew he should do were directly in conflict, but Slade knew he had no choice. As his adrenaline levels began to return to normal, he acknowledged that the future would have to wait for one more day.


End file.
